Reflections: The Project

This album is for my final project for Intermediate Photography 409.

Artist Statement:

In today’s idealistic society, identity and self image are growing topics for young adult Americans.With an ever-growing virtual world of social media, we tend to broadcast an alternative version of ourselves. Although the person you see on your feed and the person I see in the mirror are one in the same, they feel like strangers to each other. Although this project is inspired by personal self-struggles of self-image, internal value, and health conditions, I didn’t want to focus only on myself. In fact, my own experiences have inspired me to encourage others to acknowledge the person they see in the mirror. This project focuses on how we see our own mirrored reflections, and base our opinions of ourselves from internal thoughts and feelings we have towards ourselves. This project doesn’t focus on the body itself so much as it focuses on our reflections of ourselves, and how we see a distorted version of ourselves. It brings light and awareness to the fact that we are often too judging and critical of ourselves, even when the majority of these thoughts and feelings are conjured-up delusions. To illustrate the core of this project, I utilized mirrors of various sizes as well as other reflective devices, such as water. I then placed these mirrors in a variety of settings to reflect light, surrounds, and bodies. I shot the photos from the most distorted perspectives possible to accentuate how we tend to see distorted versions of ourselves.

Your weakness does not define your value,Your struggle does not define your strength,And struggle is what makes us beautifully, human.